Vata Season
Each year has two major season shifts— one in February and one in August. When August arrives, we notice days getting shorter, temperatures getting a little less predictable, and schedules fluctuating as well. Our bodies start to crave the preparation for the colder darker months. Vata season is a time of cold, dry, mobile, subtle, rough quality. The idea that like increases like and opposites balance acts a good benchmark to begin understanding balancing activities/qualities for the changes of the seasons.
Ayurveda understands the known universe through categorization of qualities. The doshas act as constitutions that make sense of who we are and as patterns of disease when they go out of balance. Doshas are just another system of categorization, embodied in our tissues, our bodies, our day-to-day, year-to-year and across each of our lifespans. In short, your intuition (and your gut) craves those things that will keep it in harmony with the season, you’ve just got to listen.
Lifestyle Suggestions
After the heat and the depletion of early Summer, our bodies begin to dry out— we run ourselves ragged. Much like the hot humidity of Summer turning into the cold dryness of Autumn, we burn up our ojas (juicy vitality) in the Summer and all that activity shrivels us up. One useful way to avoid this is by integrating oil massage into your routine. Abhyanga, or Ayurvedic oil massage, moisturizes our largest organ. The things we touch are absorbed into our skin and are transported directly to the circulatory system. Abhyanga keeps the body warm, skin supple, and helps with the increased fat intake that our bodies need for the coming winter months.
August is often the time right before school begins when folks desperately flee for last minute vacations before the arrival of Fall. Make time for ritual and regularity in feeding and sleeping schedules. This is vitally important to keeping our bodies grounded and consistent curing this time of change.
“The mind loves freedom but the body likes structure” and our circadian rhythms are more than just sleep cycles, they play a major part in digestion and over all endocrine function. When we know when we’re going to eat (and we honor those signals) our bodies ease out of mobile, subtle uncertainty and feel more grounded as well.
Autumn invokes the feeling of cool breezes, dried leaves, maybe a flurry or two, and increased darkness. The ground hardens and life shrivels up— we’re moved indoors to avoid the elements but it’s important to make time to spend in nature. We can wear warm clothing and build our body heat with activities like raking leaves or going for a run. Our bodies benefit from connecting with the electrical currents of the earths magnetic field. Spending time grounding is healing— it calms our sympathetic nervous system and supports immune health.
Baking and creating with your hands are fabulous activities to take up during this time of year. Putting your hands on tangible things helps with keeping us out of the conceptual clouds and grounded in reality.
Diet Staples
Ayurveda categorizes six major tastes— sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, astringent. The latter half of the list have drying qualities while the former has moistening qualities. In a dried out time, tastes that increase moisture, increase heat in the body, and aid in retention are extremely useful.
Sweet taste is both liquifying and cold— sweetness that occurs naturally includes sweet potatoes, honey, apples, apricots, pears, gourds/squashes, avocado, fennel, red meats, etc. - any carbs/fats/proteins.
Sour is of fire and earth— warm and grounding. Sour tastes include citruses, berries, vinegars, cheeses and ferments, spinach. Sour is a secretagogue, so it encourages our body to liquefy and moisturize.
Salty is valuable in aiding in retention (and combating cold dieuresis). Mineral salts are preferrable over white table salt because they’ve retained some of their earthy/electron energetics which are valuable for the bodies electrical impulses— think potassium/seeds.
How This Effects You
The three doshas are embodied within and without, so Autumn is Vata season. Folks with Vata imbalance, or that tend towards Vata qualities, are irritated by the likeness of the season. For Pitta-imbalanced people, coming off of the summer aggravation, Autumn comes as a calm, cool welcome. Kapha, the cold/wet/heavy, time of year is just ahead, so Autumn is a fantastic time for people with Kapha imbalances to begin to plan strategies to keep their systems running efficiently in preparation for their season of aggravation.
Small steps to start finding balance are more valuable than expecting a ton of change and falling flat with none— so pick a few things, keep a few things in mind, and continue to give yourself grace on your journeys.
august in your body
summer is beginning it’s final hoorah and august signifies the beginning of vata season (dry, cold, light, mobile, etc). the arrival of august signifies a biannual shift in temperature as the weather starts to lean towards the cool darkness of fall and eventually autumn. perhaps you notice how the storms of august usher in cooler air much more readily than those of july. thus begins a time of delicately balancing our preparation for the cooler/darker months and the considerations for the heat and activity that we’ve been in the throes of for a few months.
lifestyle & routine
after the warmth of the earlier summer months have sweated out all of our moisture, august is a vital time to replenish electrolytes and moisturize so that we aren’t taken off guard come the turn of the season (just a few weeks away). take time to maintain solid oil massage routine (abhyanga) and hydration practices (aka this morning bev).
august ushers in a new routine as back to school season begins and vacation season winds down. regardless of where you are in life, this transition time means more traffic (with busses shuttling kids around and people firmly situated back in their work routines). inevitably, this change in energy asks for a change in routine to factor in new commute times, new weather patterns, and proper sunlight exposure. our circadian rhythms begin to fluctuate and these fluctuations lead to insomnia and poor recovery/rest.
the big take away from this time of transition is to dress properly for the weather (layer up for the cooler mornings/evenings), keep our bodies a bit warmer at bedtime (to counter the insomnia of late summer), and continue to prioritize a solid bedtime (and bed time routine) to keep the nighttime repair cycles on track and efficient.
diet staples
as within so without, and, as the season shift slides into place, our bodies start to crave the sweet and nourishing foods of autumn. coming off of the heatwaves of july, we are easily depleted, so building/fatty foods will lay a solid foundation for our pre-fall preparation. some examples of these foods include yogurt, beans, nuts, fish, root veggies, avocado, oils.
it’s also vitally important to continue staying hydrated with the summer heat still on and the body sweating throughout the day. hydrating with just water actually often turns into dehydration so liquid foods are a great opportunity to both hydrate and nourish. foods such as grapes, cucumbers, melons, peaches, tomatoes, and squashes are a great fit with their juiciness keeping us fueled with vitamins and minerals to keep our bodies running properly.
what’s next
summer is winding down and the days are getting shorter, so now is a good time to restore your energy and soak up the last bit of sun as you begin to lay the groundwork in your body for what’s to come. as always, reach out to your friendly neighborhood lifestyle consultant if you need a hand getting started.
morning marg
makes 32oz of electrolyte goodness
what you’ll need
32 oz glass jar
1 lime
a healthy pinch of salt
1/2 tbsp cilantro
how you’ll prepare it
mix it all up and refrigerate.
ways you can consume it
add a dash to some tequila in the evening
consume with psyllium husk in the morning
dessert rice
makes a week’s worth of breakfasts
what you’ll need
1 c dates, chopped
1 1/2 c basmati rice
1/2 c almonds
1 tbsp poppy seeds
cinnamon, all spice, nutmeg, any warm and sweet herb
1 tbsp ghee
how you’ll prepare it
melt ghee on stove top (in pan, preferred)— add rice and mix til fully coated and aromatic.
add water and bring to a boil.
add chopped dates, almonds, and poppy seeds— bring to a simmer.
leave covered and toss seasonings in when water begins to reduce.
ways you can consume it
add a drizzle of maple syrup or honey w/ some craisins.
plate w/ cottage cheese and a drizzle of honey for a robust brekkie.
have for dessert with a scoop of ice cream.
tastes great cold or warm.
you are what you eat
as the saying goes— you are what you eat. but what does that mean and how does that happen? how does our full plate of dinner transform into the building materials that we use to heal and nourish our bodies daily? in ayurveda, there are a handful of theories to explain how we become what we consume— for the purposes of this blog post, we’ll focus on one: the irrigation theory. before we can fully dive into that, let’s back track a bit to understand the picture of what our digestion is from this eastern perspective.
agni
ayurveda uses qualitative understanding of the world around us as a framework to perceive our imbalances and simplify our solutions. building on a basic understanding of the five main elements (earth, water, fire, air, ether), we can begin to categorize concepts, such as bodily functions. as it pertains to our digestion, ayurveda refers to our digestive fire as agni. the qualities of fire are the same qualities that we see in our body as we digest that which we consume: related to energy and light. there is a transformative power in fire that we can also see in the transformation of the food stuffs we consume. so what does this transformation process look like?
irrigation theory
one theory of digestion is the irrigation theory. our food stuffs hits our agni (or digestive fire) and, much like a train route, makes stops at 7 stations (our tissues) letting passengers off at each stop til it hits the final destination and all remaining passengers hop off.
the nutritive path runs along the most prevalent to least/most subtle tissues in the body so think: rasa (lymph), rakta (red blood), mamsa (muscle), meda (fat), asthi (bone), majja (nerves), shukra (reproductive tissues). each tissue takes about 5 days to assimilate the nutrients it needs before the next tissue gets it’s pickins. this process lasts about 35 days (give or take).
what does this mean
in a world full of instant gratification, having a framework that offers some form of timeline to keep in mind is extremely useful. when you make dietary or lifestyle changes, it’s hard to maintain patience with the process after a few weeks with hard-to-notice shifts.
the value of this theory of metabolism offers us a timestamp to check back to see how things really have changed. circling back to the elemental understanding of the universe, when we experience what appears to be a hot imbalance (rashes, headache, bleeding), giving a cold quality intervention the proper time to take effect is vitally important to keeping consistency.
TL;DR— the real saying goes “you are what you eat and assimilate”, so eat for how you feel and continue to dial into your intiutions.